


it's a natural fact

by oxymoronic



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 09:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12650754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronic/pseuds/oxymoronic
Summary: Five days in July 1979.





	it's a natural fact

**Author's Note:**

> i am. the most nervous!! about this fic so i really hope it's ok! huge huge thanks to wolfhalls without whom i would not have written a word of the wretched thing.
> 
> quick confession: you will have to humour me slightly wrt the dates here because i like an idiot thought the film was set in 1978, wrote this whole fic to be set six months post-canon with multiple references to historical events, and then discovered it was actually set a year earlier. so aside from apologising profusely, i can only say i'd be grateful if you squint rather hard past the timeline for me. the [2nd july 1979](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_in_LGBT_rights) was when outlawing of discrimination against homosexuality in the private workplace was signed into law in LA. i actually lifted all the words from a cheesy online 'word of the day' calendar.
> 
> title taken from [Tired of Being Alone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdw7kxD8eUc) by the Rev. Al Green, whose music i grew up with and love to bits.

* * *

  _July 1: Appetency. A longing or desire; a natural tendency or affinity._

* * *

 

It still makes Jackson feel awkward, having to knock. But he sure as shit ain’t asking for a key.

Holland answers the door, face dripping with red, and it takes Jackson a long, hot second to twig it’s tomato. “Healy!” he says, like it’s any kind of surprise. “We’re making pizza.”

Jackson trails him in. “Who the fuck makes pizza?”

Jessica squints at him from the kitchen. “Don’t be such a fun nun,” she snaps.

“Yeah, you heard her,” Holland says, voice wavering, jabbing with one pointed finger. “Don’t be such a fun nun.”

Holly shoots him a look. “It’s for Home Ec,” she explains, resigned. The tomato on Holland’s face is in the shape of her hand. Whatever the cause, he’s pretty sure he won’t blame her.

It’s a good hour before they eat, clustered in the kitchen like the house doesn’t have any chairs. Holland grabs it straight out the oven and shrieks like a child when he burns his tongue. “You know,” Jackson says, mouth full, “This is pretty good.”

“Her mom was a lousy cook,” Holland says brightly. “This is all from me.”

Across the kitchen, he and Holly exchange a look. They both know Holland couldn’t find the ass end of Chef Boyardee. “So I just heard,” Jessica says, mozzarella dangling topically from her fingers. “Janet found out she’s lactose intolerant.”

Holland stares at her, aghast. “Lactose intolerant? What the fuck do you mean, lactose intolerant?”

Holly rolls her eyes skyward. “It means she can’t have cheese.”

“I know what it fucking means,” Holland answers, thin and prissy, over-slow. “Jesus, imagine that. A life without fucking cheese.”

“Maybe it’ll stop her being so much of a bitch,” Jessica suggests, butchering up the final slice.

Jackson nods solemnly. “She is a bitch,” he agrees.

  

 

Jessica leaves, Holly goes to bed, Holland gets drunk, and Jackson doesn’t. Par for the course, on any Sunday night. Sat on the sofa with a bottle each, soda and whiskey, Holland swigging six for his every four. It’s an ersatz kind of intimacy, he supposes.

Holland’s fixated on this weepy broad onscreen, eulogising over some dead actor Jackson doesn’t think he knows. “Shit,” Holland says, pressed up against his side. He smells disgusting, acid whiskey and stale sweat, but Jackson still doesn’t push him off. “I loved his movies.”  

 

* * *

  _July 2: Portentous. Of or like a portent; of momentous significance._  

* * *

 

It’s LA. The Monday traffic is murder. For reasons beyond Jackson’s remotest understanding, they’re attempting to drop off Holly, and this stroke of genius on Holland’s part has left them staring at the same five buildings for almost an hour. “I got us a case,” Holland says, tapping out a cigarette. “Robbery over in Fairfax.”

“What is it, jewelry?” Jackson asks, squinting myopically into the thin sunlight. It’s funny, the number of times he deliberately finds something to watch that isn’t Holland.

“You know the German for jewelry is schmuck?” Holly interjects from the back seat.

“No kidding,” Jackson says, impressed. “For real?”

Going by the ubiquitous underhand mutter, Holland’s become possessed by Hitler; Holly’s glare to the back of his head could smash glass. “Christ, Dad, you’re so xenophobic.”

Holland stares over at Jackson. “Where the fuck does she get off, knowing a word like xenophobic? Did you teach her that?”

Holly snaps closed her textbook. “I’m gonna be late. I’ll walk.”

“Have a good day at school, sweetheart,” Holland calls over the blaring horns, and Holly doesn’t even spin to flip him off. Watching her go, Holland seems almost overwhelmingly proud. “It’s a book,” he adds.

Jackson frowns. “A book?”

“Yeah, first edition. Worth thousands, apparently, but the cops don’t give a shit.” Holland pushes up his shades with the blunt of his thumb. “I got a fence who might know something, down near Silver Lake. He does antiquities.”

Jackson juts out his chin. “Didn’t know anybody still bought books,” he admits.

  

 

They cruise into Silver Lake just after four. There’d been something niggling, down at the back of his neck, for the whole of the drive; something he thinks he should know and can’t remember. Understanding drops into Jackson’s stomach like hellwrought ice the minute he kills the engine.

“It’s a gay bar,” Jackson says.

“I know that. I’m not blind.” Holland frowns. “That a problem for you?” Jackson, throat tight and palms beginning to itch with sweat, seemingly can’t wrench out a no in time from between his tight-clenched teeth. It prompts a rare and fitful sight; Holland March, looking disappointed. “Jesus,” he says, tone lilted with disbelief. “Wait in the car.”

Holland’s quiet when he comes back out. Maybe some guy touched him up, Jackson thinks, fingers flexing on the wheel, tight against the leather. Maybe Holland wanted him to. “You got a name?” Jackson asks, uneasy.

“Yeah,” Holland says, not meeting his eye. “I got a name.”

  

* * *

 _July 3: Anathematize. To curse or condemn_. 

* * *

 

For all that it’s been months, Jackson still has no clue how much of what they do is actually legal. He doesn’t ask, Holland doesn’t say, and they both wind up getting paid. They’re currently balanced either side of a corridor outside of the DA’s office, waiting for some staffer Holland knows to run plates, and all Jackson can think about is how horribly the wallpaper clashes with Holland’s shirt. “I got a meeting,” Holland says, half-hiding behind a yawn. “Six pm tomorrow, back at Ronnie’s.”

Jackson swallows. “That’s the – ?”

“Yes, the gay bar, with all the fucking gays in it.” There’s that thin look of disappointment back on Holland’s face. “Christ, Healy. I’ll deal with it.” He necks a good gulp of his hip-flask, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “Take Holly to the movies. There’s that Muppet thing, she likes that. I’ll meet you after.”

Jackson nods, stares down at the gap between his shoes. He has to explain. He knows he has to. He just has no fucking clue how to voice aloud to Holland March that the idea of a guy, any guy, pushing him down on his knees is, and always has been, every fucking kind of a turn-on.

They run the plates, they get the name, Holland fails to flirt with the world-weary girl manning the front desk. All in a day’s work, Jackson thinks, even as he tries to fight off a sense of mounting dread. “Listen,” Holland says, just as they pull up into his drive. “You can think what you like, but keep that shit away from Holly. I don’t want her hearing it.”

Jackson feels his mouth go dry. “I’m not a homophobe.”

Holland rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he mutters, digging out his house keys. “I’m not Magneto. I can’t change what you think.”

  

 

It’s undoubtedly a better class of apartment, this shithole the Hollands March have got him in; but it still has its issues. It’s nice sometimes, Jackson supposes, for life to provide its universal constants. Tells you where you are in the world, how it views you. He, apparently, can move fifty blocks and pay a hundred bucks more in rent, but there are seemingly some things a bitter self-employed divorcé can’t shake. Roaches, rats, gun-toting gangsters; and now there’s fucking damp in the walls. Jesus.

Not that he’s here much, if he’s honest. He still comes back here to shit, shower, and shave, out of courtesy for Holly, if nothing else. Plus Holland won’t give him anyplace to store his shirts.

Holly got him one of those little heaters for Christmas, for the tank. There’s all sorts in there now, a little fish cornucopia. He sits down in front of it and stares unseeing at the gently waving fronds of bubbles. It’s 1979, not 39; he shouldn’t let it get to him, no matter how much shit there apparently is still lodged in his hindbrain. Growing up Catholic on the East Coast, all the Thou Shalts and the Thou Shalt Nots. Walking past a church still gives him goosebumps.

It’s all this stuff in the news. It’s got him spooked. He should be glad of it, he knows; but the honest truth is it scares him shitless. All of it does. The publicity, the hype, the approval, the pride. The men hanging out the front of Ronnie’s bar, tight shirts and tighter pants, celebrating something defiantly that Jackson has always wanted ripped out of him with a meathook.

Jesus, one of them had said, as Holland walked by. He’s a tall glass of water. And Jackson had sat in the car, knuckles tight on the wheel, and hadn’t dared fucking move.

  

* * *

 _July 4: Cardinal. Of the greatest importance; fundamental._  

* * *

 

Jackson remembers that one. Sucking dick, he thinks, is a cardinal sin.

  

 

They see the Muppet thing. Holly buys them a soda to split out of her allowance, and doesn’t even make him sit on the other side of the theater. The sight of her smile, the sound of her laugh, lodges something unnameable and heavy right at the center of Jackson’s chest.

The movie finishes, and Holland doesn’t show. After sixty long seconds of imagining him on his knees in some brick-lined alley over in Silver Lake, Jackson makes an executive decision not to think about it. “C’mon,” he says to Holly, with practiced ease. “I’m gonna get you a sundae the size of your face.”

They wind up in a diner two blocks over, heaving to the rafters with screaming kids and their thin-lipped parents. Holly, sweet kid that she is, doesn’t even seem that upset that her dad’s a no-show. He worries about her sometimes, the purgatories Holland keeps her in. Eternally waiting for the builders to break ground. “Is this your shittiest 4th of July?” he asks, scuffing up her hair across the table.

Narrow-eyed, she swats away his hand. “Not even close,” she admits, and grins.

  

 

Ten pm comes and goes, and still no sign of Holland. Jackson sits itchy-palmed on Holland’s sprawling sofa, hands flat on his knees, and stares sightlessly at the blaring TV. Doesn’t think about blowjobs in backrooms or the softness of Holland’s hair or his crinkle-eyed smile or fucking, _fucking_ disco music.

Five to midnight, the telephone rings. _“Don’t freak out,”_ Holland says down the line, _“But I got a teensy bit stabbed. Come pick me up?”_

  

 

Okay, so he’s freaking out. He leaves Holly a note, upbeat and vague in tone, and finds he can almost cruise to the ER on autopilot. It hadn’t even fucking occurred to him in all that time that Holland might be in trouble, obsessed as he was with the idea of him decidedly not. Jackson Healy, it seems, is off his fucking game. No fucking prizes for figuring why.

He finds Holland abandoned in a side room, slurring smiles at anyone who drifts by, probably doped up to his fucking eyes just to keep him sat down and still. He looks a little chastened when he gets sight of Jackson, like a child expecting its parent to tear off a strip. “Don’t be mad,” he whines, watching nervously as Jackson squats down and runs his fingers over the line of bandage on his arm. “She jumped me. I wasn’t even drunk.” 

“I’m not mad,” Jackson quietly replies. “Does it hurt?”

“Fucking nope,” Holland answers happily. “I’m seeing fucking rainbows, man.” A bottle blonde bustles in from the corridor, clipboard in hand, and Jackson slides aside to let her do the requisite checks. “Sara!” Holland says, surprised. He raises a hand to touch her hair, misses by half a foot at best. “That color is great on you, is that new?”

Jackson pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can I take him home?” he asks.

Sara hands him a small smile. “He’ll be fine.”

  

 

The meds wear off long before Jackson gets him home. Holland slumps down in the front seat of the car, legs askew, and scowls like a teenager, like an uncanny impression of his better-mannered daughter. “Ow,” he mutters, fidgeting restlessly, and Jackson has to pray to the Almighty himself for the blessed gift of fucking patience.

“Don’t poke it,” he says, flat and unsympathetic. He slides Holland a look. “She?”

“They have women gays too, you know,” Holland answers snittily, running a hand through his hair. “I managed to stumble right on the fucking deal. She stabbed me and he fucking bolted.”

Shit. “You get their names?”

“No,” Holland mutters, scowl fitful. “This only started happening to me when I met you, you know,” he adds, reedily. “You’re like my bad fucking luck charm.” Jackson doesn’t dispute the lie.

He’s quieter by the time they pull into the drive, face pale and pinched, and it makes something uncomfortable roll heavy in Jackson’s chest. He helps him up out the car, to the door, to his room, to his, Holland’s, bed. Holland falls down on it with little ceremony, wavering upright on default with a drunk’s overpractice. Jackson kneels in front of him, tugging off Holland’s shoes. “The fuck are you doing?” Holland asks, voice hoarse.

His ankle feels so soft and slight under Jackson’s fingertips. “I don’t want you getting sores,” he answers, and looks up. Yellow light slants in from the half-closed blinds, and the air is still and stifling. Jesus, Jackson thinks, he’s fucking beautiful. And god knows there ain’t no straight way around that thought.

“Jack,” Holland says. The word itself is somehow made electric, by him, because of him. Holland leans down just as he leans up, and when they meet in the middle, rough and clumsy, Jackson slides a hand into Holland’s hair and kisses him.

Holland pulls away. “Shit,” he mumbles, slanted high-pitched. His breath is shaky at the edges.

“Yeah,” Jackson agrees. He has to clear his throat to speak.

Holland nods once, very solemnly. “I’m gonna pass out,” he says, and does.

  

* * *

 _July 5: Interdigitate. To interlock like the fingers of two clasped hands._  

* * *

 

Jackson wakes up on the sofa. Staring up at the distant, pockmarked ceiling, he allows himself the customary thirty seconds of dread, remorse, panic, and regret, and then goes to find Holland.

He’s balanced on the diving board, kicking his heels, nursing his whiskey. “Morning,” Jackson says.

Holland looks sheepish. “I feel like I might need to, uh.” He clears his throat. “Retract a few accusations.”

Jackson shrugs, sits down poolside. Watches silently as Holland, with a certain practiced deftness, one-handedly retrieves and lights a cigarette. “You got a kid,” Jackson says quietly, after a while.

Holland squints at him. “So?” he asks, peevish.

Jackson can’t hold his gaze. “You never felt like you had to.” He squirms a little, falters. He doesn’t know the words. “Pick a side?”

“Pick a side?” Holland echoes, incredulous, disgusted; Jackson’s stomach lurches. “Fuck you, pick a side.”

Jackson scours his face with his hand. “This is not how I imagined this conversation going.”

Holland snorts, drags on his cigarette. “No shit. Really.”

Jackson wets his lips. “Really,” he chances, chest growing tight. In for an inch. “After I finished apologising for acting like a prick, I figured I might suck you off.”

Holland’s eyes flick to him, go unmistakably dark. “Yeah?” he says quietly, tapping off the ash. “Well.” He smiles, just a little. “There’s still time.”

 

  

Jesus, but he’s forgotten so much of it, the way it lights his fucking soul alive. And then, new but unmistakable, is Holland; the look on his face, the fucking taste of him, still hot in the back of his mouth, the tight little sobbed-out _fuck_ just before he came –

Holly loudly whacks a pan, materializing without warning in the kitchen, and Jackson nearly has a fucking heart attack. “Shit,” he says, tight and reedy, as soon as he’s gathered enough breath back. “Was I meant to come get you?” Holly shrugs, peering into the cookie jar, and Jackson guiltily thinks that’s probably a yes. “You want some coffee?”

Holly grants him a look of deep teenage disdain. “Coffee’s gross,” she states, a clear fundamental of her universe. “Where’s Dad?”

Jackson nods to the corridor. “Lying down.” Post-coital and passed out, to be accurate; but for once it’s vaguely excusable in the middle of the day. He does have a couple liters of blood he needs to regenerate.

She wrinkles her nose. “It smelt like the hospital this morning. Did he get hurt again?”

“Yeah,” Jackson admits, “But not bad.” He reaches over to fuss her hair; she dodges his hand, practised and expecting it. Her petulant scowl is all Holland. “And we’re gonna take care of him,” he finishes, smiling freely. “You and me.”


End file.
